Digital Personal Assistants: Do you really need one?

Ever since the introduction of Siri on the iPhone 4S back in 2011 there has been a plethora of digital assistants that were released on competing platforms. These digital assistants initially started as a way for you use your voice in aiding you with your tasks. Things like setting up alarms or sending a text message can be done easily by simply saying a specific command.

Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana, Alexa, Bixby – do you even use them?

Ever since the introduction of Siri on the iPhone 4S back in 2011 there has been a plethora of digital assistants that were released on competing platforms. These digital assistants initially started as a way for you use your voice in aiding you with your tasks. Things like setting up alarms or sending a text message can be done easily by simply saying a specific command.

It was a fun feature at first, though the first generation of digital assistants weren’t perfect. Remember when Siri had trouble understanding what you said? Remember when it had trouble understanding other accents?

But what makes these companies push for the further development of such personal assistants is that in the future, there is a chance that these will only the only thing powering smart devices. And while I personally don’t rely too much on such services, I realized that others can find benefit on them.

Take for example a recent friend of mine who has impaired vision due to an accident. He was a big Apple user – and since the iPhone is mostly a huge touchscreen he can’t possibly use it normally like it was before. With Apple’s own Accessibility settings, he can still manage to use his iPhone but what I just learned is that he now constantly uses Siri to read him emails and somehow aid him in certain tasks.

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Tech Enthusiast and Movie Buff. Has passion for all things tech - you’ll normally find him tinkering with the latest gadgets and computer peripherals. He is an avid collector of DVDs and Blu-ray discs, and recently discovered his love for gaming. Follow him on Twitter at @vp_ortiz17